New Features in inSync v2.2

This weekend I downloaded and tried the new Druvaa inSync PC backup release v2.2 (news, download, release notes). In this post, I have reviewed some of the new features as an end user – 1. Admin configured backup folders The new “admin configurable backup folders” features is targeted specifically at enterprise setups where admin wants better control over what gets backed up on user’s PCs. Now, for each profile the administrator can choose “must have” backup folders, and conditionally allow users to add one or more folders. This helps the admin implement standardized backup policies.

2. Browser Restore When not on one’s own PC, accessing the data can be really difficult . With the new browser restore feature, the browser comes very handy to access the backed up files. To provision the feature, the admin has to first choose published IP address/port for web-restore in server configuration and then enable “web restore” in the profile. The user’s of the profile can then set the password for web-restore in the client configuration (as shown below).

Once password is set, the user can access the backup data over HTTPS using the published web-restore URL. The screenshot below shows web-restore in action –

3. New Server Status and Advanced Reporting I have always liked products with good reporting capabilities. The ability to show current status/health and good reports/statistics without making the admin go through the logs is very important. The new release comes with pretty good reporting capabilities. The new server status (shown below) tells the admin that everything is working fine.

And whenever the server faults or encounters a not-so-good situation (like “disk full” or “db not reachable“), alert email notification is sent immediately(see below) –

The new reporting engine is what i liked the most, it now offers six different reports. As shown below, each of these reports can be scheduled independently. The admin can also use the “Report Now” feature for generating on-demand reports.

The screenshot below shows a snippet of “Complete Report” –

4. Remote Restore At Druvaa, we are paid to restore your data. To make the restore even simpler for some non-tech users, we have empowered the admin to schedule data restore for the user. The admin can now remotely browse user’s data backup hierarchy (but can not view data) and remotely schedule restore for any file/folder. The chosen file/folder is automatically restored to user’s desktop. The screenshot below shows, how admin can now browse and restore user’s data

5. Configuration API With this release, Druvaa has also opened up the configuration API (as XML-RPC calls). This is mainly intended for third party vendor’s for better integration with their applications. The Road Ahead I must say, I am quite impressed with the new features. But, I guess there is always scope for improvement :). Based on my evaluation, I have put the following feature request, and hopefully you would these in the next major version –